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911 tapes give glimpse of Sept. 11 horror

BY MICHAEL CLANCY | amNEWYORK CITY EDITOR

April 3, 2006

New Yorkers got a glimpse this weekend of the horror endured by those trapped inside the World Trade Center on 9/11.

In 130 calls on almost nine hours of 911 tapes, released Friday by court order after a lawsuit filed by The New York Times and relatives of 9/11 victims, dispatchers struggled to deal with the chaos of the terrorist attack and the panic of victims they were helpless to aid.

"On the second World Trade Center on the 83rd floor five people were trapped, went unconscious," said a police dispatcher to a EMT dispatcher, taken a moment during the madness to reflect on the painful calls from victims. "It's an awful, awful thing to call somebody and tell them 'You're going to die.' That's an awful thing. I hope -- I hope they're all alive ..."

In most cases, operators instructed callers to stay put -- standard procedure in a high-rise fire -- because help was on the way. Both Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta praised the operators for their composure in dealing with scared and confused callers.

The collection of tapes "clearly demonstrates that our dispatchers were unsung heroes on the darkest day in our city's history," Scoppetta said in a statement.

Under the terms of a court order, the callers voices were removed from the tapes and their words trimmed from the transcripts. An appeals court ruled last year that the victims' calls could not be revealed without the consent of their families. That court order is under appeal. The parents of one victim, Christopher Hanley, released a copy of their son's call to the Times.

One victim's mother said the tapes showed operators were given proper training.

"I'm hoping that the public and the system will learn how unprepared the City of New York and the Port Authority were that day," said Sally Regenhard, whose son Christian, a firefighter, died.

But telling callers to stay put on the upper floors of a high-rise when a fire is burning below remains the standard operating procedure for 911 operators, said fire dispatcher supervisor David Rosenzweig.

"Telling people to stay -- for some reason people think that's the wrong thing to do," Rosenzweig said. "But the same instructions save lives every day."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.